Ganga’s fiancee, Shameka Gavin, said Ganga was shot during his daily walk from her home to the
store to buy beer. Police say he was approached at 11 a.m. by the three suspects near Caldwell
Place and Bolivar Street, not far from Monroe Alternative Middle School.

Gavin, 27, said the two suspects in custody are boys from the neighborhood. Attempts to reach
their families last night were unsuccessful.

Gavin said Ganga was a friendly man who had just beaten prostate cancer and enjoyed spending
time with his four children from his first marriage and his 6-month-old daughter with Gavin. She
said of his shooting that it would be pointless to try to take something from him because he would
give all that he had. “Somebody like that didn’t deserve this,” she said.

Twice in the past two years, Ganga contacted Columbus police to say he’d been a victim of crime.
In September 2011, he reported that he was threatened by strangers, and in December 2012, he said
he was pistol-whipped and robbed of $10 as he sat outside his North Side home.

Gavin gasped when she learned of the arrests of Thomas and Johnson, and she sobbed while
recalling the man her baby daughter will never remember.

“I really want people to know that ya’ll took someone great,” she said.